Newark's Ex-Mayor Guilty Of Fraud
Newark, New Jersey has some issues. No, not the soaring crime rate, the disturbing unemployment numbers, or the deteriorating schools.
We're talking about the original gangsta, Sharpe James, who was pimpin the city for his own selfish benefit. Now pops and his jump-off, co-defendant Tamika Riley, find themselves facing 3 hots and a cot for charges related to property fraud.
Prosecutors said James, 72, hijacked a program designed to encourage urban renewal by offering developers land at low costs, and approved the sale of city-owned properties to Riley, 39, then his girlfriend, at a fraction of their actual value from 2001 to 2005.
Yes that's right, homegirl was thirty-three years Sharpe's junior! And she was selling city property while improperly receiving about $27,000 in federal housing subsidies for her apartment in Jersey City. Clearly no shame in Tamika's game.
With hizzoner "steering" land to her, Riley bought multiple discounted properties and resold them at market rate without attempting to first rehabilitate them, as required by the program, prosecutors said. Riley collected about $500,000 in profits from the transactions, they said.
When it was the defense’s turn to try to rebut the prosecution’s case, lawyers for Mr. James called just two witnesses — two former councilwomen who tried to bolster the assertion of Mr. James that he could not approve property sales unilaterally.
Mr. James stood stony-faced and Ms. Riley appeared stunned as the jury foreman delivered the verdict, then quickly left the courtroom. Mr. James then took an elevator to the first floor of the federal courthouse, where he kissed his wife, Mary, on the cheek. They then drove off with his attorney.
What a tawdry fall from grace for a black man who was the powerful Democratic mayor of New Jersey’s largest city for 20 years, until 2006, and a state senator from 1999 to 2008. And to think that folks we're telling current Mayor Cory Booker that he needed to wait his turn and let this older, wiser, vetted politico stay in office.
Sound familiar???
Under federal guidelines, prosecutors say the two face up to about eight years in prison. For now, both are free on bail and will face sentencing on July 29. Mr. James’s lead attorney, Thomas Ashley, said he intended to appeal the verdict. Legal experts are predicting that the two will probably face four- to five-year sentences, district attorney spokesman Mike Drewniak said.
In a separate case, da mayor is accused of charging nearly $60,000 on city-issued credit cards between 2001 and 2006 for vacations for himself and several women other than his wife in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and the Dominican Republic.
The brotha claims that his visit to Rio de Janeiro in 2006 was to meet with the region's consulate general on city business and that a trip to the Dominican Republic was to "assess the tropical gardens on a resort property there to determine if those gardens could be replicated near Penn Station in Newark."
Yeah, and I got swap land in Palm Springs that I can get you on the cheap. Disgraceful! [CNN]